


where somebody waits for me

by debwalsh, ftmsteverogers, IsabellaJack



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: AU, Happy Ending, Iraq Vet Bucky, M/M, Single Dad AU, mlm author, platonic coparenting, single dad Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 10:20:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17958623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/debwalsh/pseuds/debwalsh, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ftmsteverogers/pseuds/ftmsteverogers, https://archiveofourown.org/users/IsabellaJack/pseuds/IsabellaJack
Summary: After his wife's death, Steve Rogers was left with a one year old daughter, a much emptier home, and a grief that left him near catatonic. Bucky Barnes - Iraq vet and Steve's longtime best friend - stepped up to help him stitch his life back together and raise his daughter until he was back on his feet. It wasn't a hard decision as far as Bucky was concerned. Steve needed the help, and he needed it from someone he already trusted with his kid, so who else could do it?Years later, Steve and Bucky have been platonically coparenting Sarah ever since Bucky offered to help out, and Bucky is starting to realize just how much he likes playing house with Steve... and how close everything is to blowing up in his face because of it.





	where somebody waits for me

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [燈火闌珊處](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20287132) by [sashach](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sashach/pseuds/sashach)



> Many thanks to debwalsh and IsabellaJack, who made art for this story!
> 
> Trigger warnings (with spoilers) are available in the end notes for those who need them :)
> 
> I'm transbucky on tumblr! Come say hi!

 

* * *

 

 

* * *

 

The sound of traffic seeped through the half-open window, blanketing the form of the man on the sofa and the kid lying on top of him. She was dead asleep, mouth half open and drooling on his shirt, and his hand stroked up and down her back as she breathed deeply. She didn’t wake when his two busted fingers caught on her shirt, well-used to his bad left hand by now, just sighed and mashed her face more firmly into his shoulder. She was getting a little big for this, at eight years old, but Bucky wasn’t going to be the one to tell her.

He turned his face far enough to press a kiss to her temple. She was warm and smelled a little like the mud she’d been playing in earlier, even though she’d sworn she’d got it all off in the bath – but she was still a Rogers no matter how often he sent her to bathe, and every Rogers liked to get their hands dirty. Even if both her hands could still fit inside one of his.

There was a jingle of keys, the lock turning, and Bucky felt himself smile preemptively as he turned his head toward the door.

“Hey,” Steve murmured into the dark, toeing off his shoes. Bucky watched him take off his jacket next, hanging it in the closet while he set his briefcase down. “How long’s the kid been out?”

Bucky glanced down at Sarah. “About an hour.”

Steve touched the crown of Bucky’s head, briefly, as he passed him toward the kitchen. Bucky leaned into the touch, even after it was taken away, eyes drifting closed. He listened to the sound of water sloshing into a glass and made a mental note to replace the Britta filter, because God knew Steve wouldn’t remember.

He didn’t know when he’d become a housewife. It had crept up on him slowly.

“You gonna stay the night?” Steve asked when he came back, leaning his hip against the back of the couch. “Guest room’s still made up from last time you slept over.”

“You mean yesterday,” Bucky pointed out, glancing up at him.

Steve smiled, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Touché.”

“Think I’m too tired to drive. You wanna help extricate me?” He gestured to the fifty-five pound sack of bricks that was snoring lightly on him. “She sounds worse than you.”

“Can thank Peggy for that,” Steve said, shrugging shamelessly, and drained the water glass before crossing around the couch to put it on the coffee table. Then he bent down to scoop his daughter into his arms, murmuring into her ear when she made a noise of protest. They disappeared down the hallway together, which was as it should be, and Bucky rubbed a hand over his sternum with a frown.

He still felt woozy and a little out of it as he sat up and scraped a hand through his hair, sleep throbbing behind his open eyes. Sarah was better than any weighted blanket; Bucky slept easier with someone to look after, always had. The guest room was down the hall past Sarah’s bedroom, so he tried to keep his footfalls silent as he padded on the thin carpet, jaw popping when he yawned. He paused in Sarah’s doorway – Steve was singing quietly, stroking the dark hair out of her big blue eyes, and Bucky felt his chest seize.

 _“Pack up all my cares and woe_ _,”_ Steve warbled, only slightly off key. _“_ _Here I go, singing low...”_

He glanced upward and met Bucky’s gaze, shooting him one of those soft-eyed smiles that went right to Bucky’s gut. Then he turned back to his daughter, crooning the rest of the verse, and Bucky slipped out of the doorway while nobody was watching. He fell into the guest bed, sheets still rumpled from the last time he’d slept in it.

 

* * *

 

 

 

* * *

 

Bucky could remember holding Sarah for the first time, cradling her tiny body close to his chest. Peggy had been exhausted and glowing. Steve had been asleep in the hospital chair at her bedside. Bucky had been perched on the edge of the mattress, waiting to be useful, or at least reassured that he wasn’t getting in the way.

“James,” Peggy said, smile tired but radiant. “Take her for a moment, won’t you? I’d like to rest my arms.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Bucky replied, wide-eyed and awed as Sarah was eased into the crook of his elbow. She barely weighed a thing.

“You look a lovely father,” Peggy mused. “Have you thought of having any yourself?”

“I’d have to be a lovely husband first,” Bucky pointed out, grinning down at Sarah, who was nuzzling into his chest. He stroked a finger over her cheek. “And I don’t see anybody linin’ up, Peg.”

Peggy laughed, settling back into the pillows. “I believe Steve was under the same impression.”

“Well,” Bucky said, very carefully, and focused on the baby girl that was yawning enormously with her open mouth on his shirt. “He was always dumb like that.”

Peggy’s eyes got all soft and sad, and Bucky couldn’t look at her. “I suppose he was,” she said gently. Then, after a moment, “I don’t think I’ve thanked you enough for your help.”

Bucky waved her off. “C’mon. You’re family.”

Steve chose that moment to snore loudly, under Bucky’s jacket on the chair. He was drooling onto the left sleeve, but Bucky didn’t care, he’d been the one to bully him into getting a little sleep in the first place. He looked peaceful for the first time in weeks, mouth slack, hands palm up and open in his lap. Bucky couldn’t stop thinking about the look on his face the first time he’d held his daughter. The reverence in his enormous hands. The way Sarah’s head had fit perfectly in the cup of his palm.

“You wanna get some sleep?” Bucky asked, glancing up, careful to keep his expression mild and warm. “I took care of my little sisters growin’ up, I can look after this kid for a while, no problem.”

Peggy looked very relieved. “Would you?”

“Yeah.” Bucky reached out, brushing a limp curl off Peggy’s forehead with a little smile. “I got this watch.”

“Angel, I name thee James Buchanan,” Peggy murmured, eyes already closing.

Bucky kept watch dutifully. Stood up from the bed while Peggy slept, balancing her and Steve’s daughter in his arms. Rocked her when she fussed. Took her on a little walk down the hallway and then back again. Spoke to her with his softest words, practiced telling her embarrassing stories about her dad. Felt her tiny chest moving up and down under the bundle of her blanket as she breathed.

He handed her back when Steve woke up, and wondered at the way his arms missed the weight.

 

* * *

 

Bucky woke ten minutes before his alarm went off, as usual. He lay on his back in bed looking at the clock, waiting for it to go off, assessing his pain. It wasn’t too bad. Back sort of permanently needed a massage, but he was coping with it, and his left arm didn’t ache any more than it normally did.

Sunlight came in through the curtains that Bucky had helped install at the beginning of it all, licking a golden stripe down the center of the bed. Bucky traced it with his fingertips. Soon Sarah would bound out of bed and race Steve to the kitchen, and Bucky would say his awkward goodbyes, and the weekend would really begin. He put his hands over his eyes. His two crooked fingers on his left hand curled against his cheek, as stiff as they always were, not wanting to uncurl.

At the first twinge of his back, Bucky decided that he’d wallowed enough for one morning. He had shit to do – doctor’s appointment at noon, then therapy, then back to his apartment to make sure nothing had gone bad in his fridge while he’d been camped out at the Rogers’ place half the week.

He kept telling himself he’d quit staying the night as often as he did, but the room was all but his at this point, and he got worse at talking himself out of it when he was tired and Steve was offering him the bed with those soft, blue, lethal eyes of his.

His wretched alarm went off within seconds of Sarah’s little feet clattering toward Steve’s room, followed by a familiar Steve-groan and some muffled laughter. Morning ritual like usual. Bucky managed to sit up and get his pants on before the kid came barreling down the hallway toward him instead.

“Morning, Bucky!” Sarah exclaimed as she threw the door open. She bounded up onto the bed, tackling Bucky backwards. Bucky went down easy, laughing, catching her up in his arms and kissing the side of her head.

“Mornin’, kiddo,” he said, voice gravelly. “Steve gonna make breakfast?”

“He says you gotta do the eggs ‘cause he always burns ‘em,” Sarah told him with all her eight-year-old earnestness. “That means you have to stay for breakfast.”

Bucky looked at her eyes – the same lethal blue as her father’s, framed by dark lashes and a messy mop of black curls she’d inherited from her mother – and sighed. He couldn’t fault her logic. “Hand me a hair tie,” he said grimly. “I’m gonna need to see if I have to save the eggs from Steve Rogers.”

Sarah slid a pink hair band off her wrist and handed it to him. Bucky knotted his hair at the base of his skull, smiling at the kid as he scraped the hair off his forehead, and offered her his hand as soon as he was through. She took it with a grin that showed off her missing front tooth.

They walked back toward the kitchen together, hand in hand, where Steve was looking down blearily at a box of pancake mix in his pajama pants and no shirt. Bucky squeezed Sarah’s hand before he let go of it and retrieved the eggs from the refrigerator.

“G’morning, pal,” he said, giving Steve a sideways glance. He looked rough. Dark circles under his eyes meant he was working too hard again, which wasn’t particularly surprising, but Bucky resolved to keep a better eye on it in the coming week.

“Hey, Buck,” Steve said, shooting him a tired grin.

Bucky smiled back briefly and focused on cracking eggs into a bowl. Two for him, one for the kid, and three for Steve, under the assumption that Steve would also steal a couple bites of whatever Bucky didn’t touch – he’d always been able to really put food away, which had mystified everyone in their childhood until Steve shot up like a rocket at age seventeen. _Well, that explains where he puts it,_ the original Sarah Rogers had sighed, hands on her hips. Bucky had just been annoyed that Steve had gotten taller than him.

“I want a big pancake,” Sarah announced from where she was sitting at the table.

Steve looked over his shoulder to raise his eyebrows at her. “How big?”

Bucky turned around too, just in time to see her sticking her tongue out the side of her mouth as she estimated the size of a pancake roughly equivalent to the entire bottom of the pan. _“Big_ pancake,” she repeated with more emphasis.

Steve glanced at Bucky with a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. “What do you say, Buck?” he asked, laughter leaking into his voice. “Think we can handle it?”

“I’ve handled bigger,” Bucky said breezily with a filthy hand gesture out of Sarah’s line of vision that made Steve choke on nothing.

“The diameter of this skillet is _ten inches,”_ Steve hissed.

Sarah was narrowing her eyes at the two of them, trying to figure out the joke. _Couple more years for that one, kiddo,_ Bucky thought. He handed Steve a whisk for the batter. “Your point being?”

Steve shook his head firmly, mouth pressed into a thin line. The tips of his ears were pink, and that was Bucky’s cue to stifle his laughter and get scrambling.

Eggs, pancakes, orange juice, table settings – Bucky and Steve navigated the kitchen together as seamlessly as always, only nudging each other on purpose, Bucky’s elbow knocking into Steve’s ribs, Steve’s foot against Bucky’s ankle. Sarah, for her part, balled up paper napkins from her perch on the table and lobbed them with an accuracy that Bucky knew _Steve_ certainly didn’t teach her.

Then they were all settled at the table and Bucky was glad for the excuse to focus on his food instead of on the man sitting next to him, half-dressed and rough around the edges from having just been asleep. It would have been easy to stare at him too much, drink in the rare moment of vulnerability, but Bucky felt bad enough as it was. He was a thief already for stealing these Saturday mornings.

“You got a full day, Buck?” Steve asked around a mouthful of eggs. “Sarah and I were gonna head to the park, if you wanna –”

“No,” Bucky said quickly. “I mean – yeah, it’s a full day. I’m booked. Sorry.” The last was delivered to Sarah, who looked very displeased with him.

“But dad doesn’t push me nearly so hard on the swings,” she complained, and Bucky would’ve laughed at that if Steve hadn’t shot him a suspicious glance that was a dead-ringer for one of Peggy’s expressions. Okay, so maybe Steve didn’t like to lob his one and only child into the air nearly as much as Bucky did. One of them had to be the pushover parent.

“Sorry, kiddo,” he said again, reaching across the table to ruffle her hair. “I gotta go get my head looked at.”

Steve’s suspicion melted right off his face. “I forgot that was starting back up again,” he said softly. “Do you want a ride?”

Bucky snorted. “You know I don’t want company, pal. It’s fine. I’ll see you on Monday, yeah?”

“Gone Sunday too?” Steve asked, and his voice may have been very mild, but his eyes were sharp with worry.

“Yep.” Bucky glanced down at his plate. He hadn’t been very hungry to begin with, but this conversation had killed the rest of his appetite. PT on Sunday morning rendered him fairly bad company anyway, even if he wasn’t hung up on giving Steve private space with his daughter sometimes. “You and Sarah have fun, though. Text me if you manage to get a picture of that fat squirrel.”

“I’m telling you, it exists,” Steve said emphatically.

“I saw it too!” Sarah slammed her tiny hand on the table.

“Uh huh.” Bucky stood from the table after he pushed his half-eaten breakfast at Steve. “I believe you.”

“Whatever you say, Buck,” Steve said, an indecipherable expression on his face.

 

* * *

 

 

 

* * *

 

“I’m going to be very honest with you, Mr. Barnes,” Dr. Cho said, looking down at her clipboard. “The scan shows no signs of improvement.”

Bucky rubbed a hand over his face. “Fantastic.”

“But it doesn’t seem like your condition’s gotten any worse than last time, either,” she continued. “Your memory, is it still...?”

“Spotty?” Bucky raked a hand through his hair. “Yeah.”

Dr. Cho tapped her pen thoughtfully against the edge of her clipboard. “Come back next week for blood work. We’re going to figure this out, Bucky.”

Bucky reached for his shirt, pulling it on over his head. He had to assume she was done poking and prodding him for one day. “You only call me Bucky when you’re really frustrated.”

“You’re an enigma,” Dr. Cho said, shrugging. “But I’m going to figure this out if it takes another year.”

Bucky tactfully didn’t mention that several doctors had said the same thing to him since he’d come home from Iraq, and all of them had yet to have the first clue of what was wrong with him. Dr. Cho was a smart lady. She could pick up on his dubious expression all on her own.

“Well, who doesn’t like to be unique?” he said lightly. “Thank you for trying.”

“I’m not done yet.” She jabbed her pen in his direction. “Blood work. Next week.”

“Sir, yes sir,” he said, snapping a quick salute. He hated blood work. Getting jabbed with needles and drained of blood made him feel like he was providing a buffet for vampires; he’d bitched about this to Steve many times after coming home with a sore left arm which, by some cruel twist of irony, had veins that were much easier to access than the right. His poor left arm couldn’t catch a break.

“Same time next week?” he asked as he shouldered into his jacket.

“You know where to find me,” Dr. Cho answered. “Take a sticker on your way out.”

 

* * *

 

Bucky put the goddamn smiley face sticker on his jacket lapel as he exited the building. His therapist would get a kick out of it, anyway. He got a couple amused glances on the bus to the office, including a tiny kid balancing on his mother’s lap who gurgled at him happily. Bucky waggled his fingers at him with a tiny smile.

He could remember when Sarah was that age. He missed when she was little enough to sling her up onto his shoulders to perch like a small bird. They’d gone to the grocery store together a lot of times at the beginning of it all, running errands with her in a baby sling and his sweatshirt zipped up around her, asking her opinion on cereal brands just to hear her babble back at him.

It had been a lot easier, back then. He’d take her out so Peggy and Steve could have a moment to themselves and Bucky would know his place, he’d know what was expected of him, and at the end of the day he’d drop the kid back off and then he’d go home alone. Things had gotten more complicated in the last seven years.

He got off at his stop and shoved his hands in his pockets, already reaching his limit for time spent outdoors in one go. Lindsey always shot him the sharpest side-eye when he missed appointments, though, and Bucky actually did value his life, so into the building he went. Keycode, small door, up the stairs, three doors down the hallway to the waiting area – he only knew the one corner of this place that he ever had reason to go to, but the route he took was well-beaten by now. He could’ve sleep-walked to Lindsey’s office. Sometimes it felt like he did.

He slouched down in the chair he always slouched down into and tucked his chin into the collar of his jacket. The hideous painting on the wall glared back at him, and he always meant to ask Lindsey which of her colleagues had thought it was a good idea, because it put him in a state of mind that was the opposite of healing.

“Bucky Barnes, making his appointment two weeks in a row,” Lindsey said behind him, arms crossed. “I’ll be damned.”

“Charming as ever,” Bucky said, and stood up, but he was smiling a little and he wasn’t even trying to hide it. “Lead on, Macduff.”

“That joke gets less funny every time you tell it,” Lindsey told him, and held the door for him. “You want tea?”

“I’m okay,” Bucky said. He peeled off his jacket and draped it over the back of the chair, settling himself the way he always did, elbows resting on his bent knees, hands laced together. When he interlocked his fingers like that, it was more difficult to tell that one of his hands was half-mangled. Easier to look at with his fingers held carefully straight with the scars hidden by his palms.

“Suit yourself,” Lindsey said, pouring herself a cup of tea from her electric kettle. “What’s on your mind, Bucky?”

Bucky hated this part the most. Getting started felt like tearing open vacuum-sealed plastic packaging with his bare hands. After that, it was hard to shut him up, but right now all the words were snagged in his throat, caught on the backs of his teeth.

“Went to the doctor’s,” he said after a brief silence. “No updates.”

Lindsey seated herself in the chair across from him. “That sounds frustrating.”

Bucky shrugged. “Didn’t really expect any different.”

Lindsey’s expression was probing, but she didn’t press. She was too good at that, probably; it made Bucky feel the need to fill the silence, grit out the stuck words until he could bleed out the poison. The fact that she never tried to hide her tactics didn’t make it less annoying when they still worked on him, but it did make him reluctantly trust her a little better.

“More nightmares, this week,” he admitted, looking down at the patterned carpet. “Iraq nightmares. Coming up on the anniversary.” He glanced at his left hand, at the edge of a scar he could see creeping up his wrist.

“Hmm,” said Lindsey.

Bucky glanced up. “Hmm?” he repeated incredulously. “I’m barin’ my soul over here and I get a ‘hmm’?”

Lindsey shrugged. “You only talk about Iraq without prompting when you need to talk about Steve instead.”

Bucky froze with his mouth hanging open. Then he closed it, flushing. “What’s to talk about?” he muttered. “Nothing’s changed there either.”

“You’re raising his daughter with him and you still haven’t told him how you feel.” Lindsey sipped at her mug while Bucky processed that. “That would wear on anyone, Bucky.”

“It’s my job,” Bucky said quietly. “It’s my job to look after him.”

“Did he ever ask you to take that job?”

Bucky glanced up sharply. “He didn’t have to.”

One of Lindsey’s eyebrows raised.

“He was _mourning,”_ Bucky said for the millionth time. “He was barely alive at all and he needed me, even if he wouldn’t say it. He and the kid needed me.”

Both of her eyebrows were raised now. “Seven years of your life is a hell of a sacrifice.”

Bucky huffed a laugh. “It wasn’t a hard equation,” he said. “Or a sacrifice. Not really.”

“Because he needed you?” Lindsey asked.

“Because I love him,” Bucky answered, and that was that.

 

* * *

 

If he’d been tired before, he was thoroughly exhausted now. He forewent the bus in favor of walking home, because the only thing worse than being exposed to the whole world would be having strangers packed around him like sardines, and Lindsey’s office wasn’t all that far from his place, anyway. So he hoofed it. The crisp air felt good, cooling his face, which burned hot from the shame that therapy always filled him up with to the brim. It rubbed him raw as sandpaper, and he knew it was good for him, but damn. There was a reason he only went once a week and skipped appointments like it was his hobby.

His apartment smelled like he’d left produce out, and he found a mouldering pair of apples on the counter that he thought looked pretty accusatory, for apples. He tossed them into the bin with a wrinkled nose and fetched a candle from his bedroom to chase away the smell. The milk in the fridge was still good for a couple days, which he was grateful for, although he had to note with some level of wryness that the fact this surprised him was probably not a good sign.

He made himself a quick sandwich and fell into bed afterward, still in his jeans, shoes kicked off God knew where. Even at five-thirty PM it was horribly easy to retreat back into the relative safety of his dreams. His phone buzzed –

 _Hey Buck :) SR_  
_How d’you like these apples?? SR_ _  
[Attachment: an enormous squirrel spotted up high in a tree, the picture zoomed-in and very blurry.]_

– but he turned it off without answering and rolled over. His last waking thought through the haze was that Steve’s guest bed was more comfortable than this.

 

* * *

 

Behind his closed eyes, Bucky was allowed to have everything he never had. Steve came home and swept him up into his arms, the world melting away from them in an oil slick of colors – pinks and greens and black and scarlet all bled together in a wash of wet-hot kisses, Steve’s hands just as big and soft and good to feel as Bucky had always imagined they would be, when he allowed himself the luxury of imagining.

 _Let me take care of you for once,_ Steve murmured, mouth in three places at once, Bucky’s body twisting and arching and grasping at whatever he could reach.

 _Anything, take anything,_ Bucky gasped. Even in the kaleidoscope of the dream, he knew how pathetic he sounded, how desperate. But at least he could feel Steve’s answering desperation, and in this reality he didn’t doubt its authenticity. Steve wanted him. Steve reached for him in technicolor.

 

* * *

 

Bucky woke up breathless and achingly hard in his jeans. Christ, did he really fall asleep in them? _Again?_ He’d sort of thought he’d kicked that particular habit, but the denim tugging at his skin said otherwise.

“Ugh,” he muttered, and shifted uncomfortably. His dick pressed against the zipper, making itself very known. Bucky vaguely remembered what he’d dreamed, which was – “Oh, God,” he said aloud, slinging an arm over his eyes.

Sounded like Sunday, alright.

 

* * *

 

By the time he hit PT, Bucky’s mood had only worsened. He’d showered and shaved, somehow, remembering the coffee he’d promised to get with Sam; Sam never judged him, per se, but he definitely raised an eyebrow when Bucky rocked up to their hangouts looking like a guy who was sick with guilt over jacking off to the man he was living with. Not that he’d – well, not this morning, anyway. Sometimes the guilt won. The image of Steve shirtless in his own kitchen with a soft domestic glow clinging to him was still too near, too fresh, for Bucky to even consider allowing his mind to wander in that direction.

This session of physical therapy was about par for the course. Bucky tried not to miss these sessions the way he missed normal therapy, if only because it was easier to see the physical ramifications of skipping – his hand would stop grabbing altogether, and the spasms rattling up his arm past the elbow were awful, wracking things. He’d pretty much given up on ever regaining feeling in his two littlest fingers. But that was alright. Three-fifths of a hand was better than the nothing they’d promised him back at the beginning when infection had set in, threatening all the way to his shoulder.

So he went to the goddamn prescribed PT. He did the exercises, the wax treatments, the hot and cold baths. His stubborn, awful hand slowly grew stronger. Someday Bucky hoped he could go back to writing left-handed again for extended periods of time without cramping so bad it made his vision go spotty.

He could still remember Steve visiting him in the hospital, once he’d been shipped back. Steve had sat at his bedside as close to ‘round the clock as he could manage, when strict visiting hours and work would allow. Bucky had never managed to tell him how much it had meant to him, knowing that more often than not, he’d wake up to a pair of familiar blue eyes smiling down at him, petting the tangled mess of his hair back from his forehead when the morphine wore off.

Bucky shouldered back into his jacket and thanked the doctor, flexing his hand with a wince as he made his way out the door.

Sam was waiting for him at their usual coffee joint, hands already curled around his latte. Bucky waved at him with a small smile as he waited in line for his mocha. Sam looked about as good as he always did, which was to say, just about how sunshine would look in human form, if sunshine decided to give personhood a try. He was Bucky’s best friend.

Bucky could say that with confidence because he didn’t want to have sex with Sam, and that was generally an important characteristic of normal platonic relationships. Steve was something else altogether, and Bucky had long ago given up on trying to find a word for what they were to each other. Complicated, that was what they were. Complicated and important.

“Barnes, you look like shit,” was the first thing Sam said when Bucky sat down across from him.

“And hello to you too,” Bucky said mildly, draping his jacket over the back of his chair. “I showered for you, dude, that should be enough.”

“You sleeping?” Sam’s tone might have been as light as Bucky’s, but Bucky knew him too well not to hear the worry lurking underneath. That was what happened when two vets became friends, especially having met at the VA – they could hide the worst of everything from most people, but not each other. There was no hiding from each other.

Bucky scritched a hand over this back of his neck. “Weird dreams,” he admitted. “But come on. You always get me talking and then I don’t hear about you. How’s Nat?”

Sam mercifully allowed him to deflect for now. “She’s just fine,” he said, taking a long sip of coffee. “Asked me to send along the message that Steve still owes her twenty bucks from poker night.”

“I’ll relay the message,” Bucky said dryly, but he twitched at the mention of Steve, and the way Sam’s eyes narrowed showed that he’d picked up on it.

“Things still bad with him?” he asked, earnest enough that it made Bucky’s teeth grit.

“Not you too,” he muttered. “Everything’s fine.”

Sam kicked him under the table. Bucky retaliated, so Sam caught Bucky’s ankle between his two calves, squeezing hard enough to remind them both that if they _actually_ tussled, they’d make enough of a mess that they’d get banned from their favorite coffeeshop.

“It doesn’t sound like everything’s fine,” Sam said.

“Steve is great,” Bucky said. He tugged his leg free from Sam’s with a bit of effort. “I’m great. The kid’s great.”

Sam looked at him, then sighed. “You got any good new pictures?”

So Bucky took out his phone to scroll through Sarah’s dance recital from the week before, unable to keep his face from softening when he played Sam a brief clip of her focusing on her spin so much she was scowling. That had been a good but hard evening – Steve kept grabbing his leg whenever Sarah came onstage, face lit up with pure, unbridled joy.

“You know,” Sam said. “If I didn’t know Steve, I’d say he was taking advantage of you.”

Bucky’s eyes snapped up as he put his phone back in his pocket. “What are you even talking about, Wilson?”

Sam shrugged. “I’ve known straight boys who liked the attention but not the commitment,” he explained evenly. “This doesn’t look so good from the outside, Buck.”

“It’s not like that,” Bucky said. He scraped his hair back from his face and tied it back in a knot at the base of his skull, mostly just for something to do with his hands. “You got it all backwards. Steve loves commitment, it’s the attention I ain’t so sure he wants.”

Sam held his gaze for a moment before he huffed a laugh, conceding the point. “He really is blind,” he said with a shake of his head, and Bucky snorted into his mocha.

“King dumbass himself, that’s my guy,” he said, sore all over, thinking about a world in which he could say _my guy_ and mean it, the words coming sweet and easy like honey crystals melting on the back of a hot spoon.

 

* * *

 

 

 

* * *

 

The truth was that loving Steve didn’t hurt. Not really. Not in any way that mattered. Bucky had loved him so long and so privately that he couldn’t imagine not loving him; so much of his life orbited his love for Steve like a benevolent, aching moon. He didn’t know any other way to be. He’d never in his life had to learn.

The knowledge that he loved Steve went hand in hand with the assurance that Steve could never and should never know that he did – it was meant to be silent and steadfast and swallowed down. It tasted sweet and familiar on Bucky’s tongue, stinging all the way down his throat with every swallow.

 

* * *

 

Bucky spent Sunday evening mindlessly watching TV on his lumpy couch, legs kicked up on the coffee table in front of him. Hands laced together on his stomach, remembering the shape of the girl that falls asleep on him when he dozes like this in the Rogers household.

He knew he was moping. He had that much self-awareness, at least. But the sound of the television wasn’t enough to drown out the maudlin, so he sat there and moped without fighting it. Maybe Lindsey was right. Seven years was an awfully long time.

Every time he thought about the alternative, though, he got sick to his stomach. He would stay here, like this, until Steve told him to fuck off. Bucky knew that Sarah was the closest he’d ever be to having a child of his own; he was going to turn thirty-six in March, and unless something drastic changed, he very much doubted he’d find a man to settle down with that would beat what he had now with Steve. He wasn’t Sarah’s father. That much was clear – she was Steve’s, and she was Peggy’s, and that was enough. The kid didn’t need more parents to stick around and add ghosts to her home. But he also wasn’t _not_ her father, and he didn’t even know where to begin unpacking that. The last thing he wanted to do was step on Steve’s toes.

His phone buzzed.

 _[Attachment: a selfie of Steve and Sarah with their faces mushed together, grinning. It’s zoomed in a little too far, so it only shows about half of each of their faces.] SR_  
_Missing you. SR_ _  
You ok? SR_

That didn’t help in the slightest. Bucky stared at his phone’s screen in the dark of his living room for a long time before managing to type out a quick message. He slumped over to the side a second afterward, sighing deeply, mashing his cheek into the arm of the sofa.

 _I’m okay. BB_ _  
_ _Miss you too. See you tomorrow. BB_

He was dozing off again when he got Steve’s final text, but he still cracked an eye to see Steve’s smiley face pop up before he laughed quietly to himself and gave in to sleep.

 

* * *

 

Steve’s wedding had been a small and intimate affair. He and Peggy had married young, at twenty-three, only a couple years out of college and right when Steve had just begun to make a name for himself as a journalist. There hadn’t been much money around to spare for anything lavish, so they kept it small and personal, close friends and what little family each of them had left. Natasha and Sharon for bridesmaids. Bucky and Sam for groomsmen. A scattering of their other friends in attendance as well – Clint, Bruce, Tony, the whole lot of them whooping loudly from their pews, making nuisances of themselves while Steve and Peggy had said their vows.

Bucky, naturally, had been Steve’s best man. The speech he gave was brief but heartfelt, and he’d downed a whole glass of champagne when he was through, sitting back down in between Natasha and the boyfriend he’d brought as his plus one. The boyfriend – a perfectly lovely guy named Eric who he’d been dating for five months – cast Bucky a sidelong look after Bucky’s voice broke on the last words of his speech ( _to the end of the line_ , he’d said, voice cracking); a look that Bucky didn’t want to poke at in the slightest.

Then they all swept off to the reception, music picking up in a joyous clatter, Peggy gathered up in her father’s arms for their traditional dance – Steve’s eyes were bright and blue and alive, so goddamn alive, as he watched Peggy get spun around the dance floor with her head thrown back, laughing. Bucky watched all of this with a smile that hurt. It hurt because it was a big smile and it hurt because he’d known this was going to happen for years, but it didn’t make it feel any less _final_ now. Forever had never sounded so real.

Steve eventually was allowed to cut in, and he did, taking Peggy’s hand with an expression that Bucky had never seen on his face before. His eyes were wet, Bucky could see that from twenty feet away. The lights glittered off the pearls in Peggy’s hairpiece.

“Do you wanna dance?” Bucky asked Eric, turning to him and fixing his face into a smile.

Eric looked uncomfortable. He tugged at his tie. “I think I should probably go,” he said.

Bucky’s eyebrows jumped toward his hairline. “Uh. Why?”

“You don’t ever look at me like that,” Eric said, shoulders twitching a shrug.

“Like newlyweds?” Bucky asked, unimpressed. “Little soon for that, yeah?”

“Not what I meant.” Eric stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I meant... the way you look at him.” He jerked his head toward Steve, who was laughing at he spun Peggy in a clumsy circle and caught her again.

“Oh,” Bucky said.

“Yeah,” Eric said. “I’m gonna – catch a ride. Have a good time.” He gave Bucky a little kiss on the cheek, which was sweeter than Bucky probably deserved, and headed for the door. It was a sign that Eric had been right that Bucky didn’t follow him. He didn’t _want_ to follow him, and that was the real kicker. He stood there with an empty champagne glass like an idiot, watching his best friend in the whole world look at his new wife like he’d won every lottery in the world all at once.

His glass was plucked from his grip and replaced with one of Natasha’s hands, her red nails a stark contrast against his skin.

“Dance with me,” she said, interrupting him before he could say anything. He shut his mouth. Then he took her onto the dance floor.

Natasha was a good dancer. She always had been the one person in their group of friends who could keep up with him, the two of them cutting a hell of a pair – black and red, blurring around each other in a tightly-controlled hurricane – enough of a matched set that many people had expressed their disbelief that the pair of them weren’t dating over the years, even after Natasha reminded them that she mostly liked women and Bucky decidedly did not.

Steve had been one of those people, once. That conversation still put a bad taste in Bucky’s mouth, years later.

“You got yourself into a bit of a mess,” Natasha commented, cheek brushing against Bucky’s. “Where did Eric disappear off to?”

“You saw that?” Bucky asked, stomach sinking.

“I see everything,” Natasha said.

Fair enough. “Think he got tired of the competition.” Bucky focused on his feet, on keeping the two of them moving in gentle circles around the room like they were buoyed by the current of the music. “‘S okay, Nat. This was always gonna happen at some point. Just moved the timeline up a bit sooner than I thought.”

“Oh, Bucky,” Natasha sighed. “You really should have told him.”

“Eric? Come on, no one on earth would take that well.”

“Steve,” Natasha corrected. “I’m talking about Steve.” Her eyes were serious, almost all the way to reproachful.

Bucky looked at her. Then he sighed, glancing over her shoulder toward Steve and Peggy again, who were barely dancing at this point, heads bent together as they swayed. Steve might have actually been crying this time, Bucky couldn’t tell.

“Look at him,” Bucky said, jerking his chin toward them. “Look at them. Why would I ever get in the way of that?”

Natasha didn’t have much to say to that, but she rubbed a hand up and down his back a couple times, and that said enough.

 

* * *

 

Sarah got out at three PM on Mondays, and Bucky was waiting on the front steps for her when she got out. He nodded at the moms and dads he was well-acquainted with by now, making only slightly awkward eye contact with them. He stuffed his hands in his jeans jacket pockets, eyes on the front door, a smile breaking over his face when he watched Sarah nearly bowl over one of her classmates in a bid to get to him as fast as possible.

 _“Bucky!”_ she hollered, launching herself at him. Bucky, in good form, caught her and spun in a little circle before putting her back down again.

“Jesus, kid, gimme some warning next time,” he laughed, slinging her tiny backpack over his shoulder and holding out his good right hand for her to take.

Sarah tugged at his left sleeve until he offered her that one instead, and grabbed it tight. “This one’s easier to hold,” she said, and tugged him toward the teacher with the clipboard near the playground fence.

Bucky felt a little like he’d been kicked in the stomach, but like hell was he going to let go of her hand now.

“Hi Sarah!” the teacher said, smiling down at her. This wasn’t Sarah’s usual teacher, Bucky noted. Must be a substitute. “You and Dad ready to check out?”

Bucky nearly choked on his own tongue. He was about to splutter through a correction – God, he was so tired of this happening, so obscenely tired – but Sarah beat him to the punch.

“That’s not my dad, that’s my Bucky,” she said, exasperated. “My dad is Steve.”

The substitute glanced at the list blankly, then ticked a box. “Right you are,” she said. “Sorry about that. Have a good day, you two.”

Bucky thanked her numbly, looking down at the kid who was tramping toward his car in her ladybug rain boots even though it had been sunny for a week straight. _Yeah,_ Bucky thought. _Yeah, I’m her Bucky._

This amused and reassured him enough that he tabled the worry that had been eating at him all weekend and focused instead on listening to Sarah babble about her day at school.

 

* * *

 

At home, Bucky helped Sarah with her math worksheet, seated at the kitchen table next to her, agreeing wholeheartedly when she complained about memorizing multiplication tables. He ran her through her vocabulary flashcards and flicked a peanut m&m across the table at her when she remembered a particularly hard one. Eventually this devolved into a small m&m battle, as it inevitably would, and Bucky had to cry uncle so she’d stop lobbing candy at him.

“You wanna put my eye out or something?” Bucky said, ruffling her hair. Christ, but she was gonna be the spitting image of her mother when she grew up. Maybe even cuter, impossibly, with the addition of Steve’s freckles.

“I’m tired of _sitting here,”_ she whined.

Bucky looked at her thoughtfully. “How d’you feel about jazz music?” he asked.

This was how they found themselves in the living room, Bucky having pushed all the furniture to the walls, one of his old records playing in the background. The record player may have been Steve’s – hooked up to a fancy-ass pair of speakers and all – but the collection was all Bucky’s. The plastic crate of them lived by a bookshelf in the living room, but for the life of him, Bucky couldn’t remember ever moving them into Steve’s home.

A lot of things were like that, in this household.

Sarah, unlike her father, picked up dance moves pretty quick when Bucky showed her how. He could walk her through a waltz real easy, and she giggled her way through the two-step when a faster song came on. He didn’t try anything too hard, just danced her around the room in easy circles, letting her step her toes on the top of his shoes when she wanted to go _fast._ Hey, Bucky liked fast dancing as much as the next guy. He was so caught up in dipping Sarah so far her hair brushed the floor that he didn’t hear the front door open.

“I’ve never been more sad my phone’s dead than I am right now,” Steve announced from the doorway. Bucky’s head whipped up. “Aren’t you two adorable?”

Steve was wearing a strange expression that Bucky wasn’t sure he recognized. It sat oddly on his face, making his eyes look too bright, his smile strange and crooked. Bucky felt on-edge, looking that face in the eye. His chest got tighter the longer he held eye contact.

“I’d like to see you turn this gal down for a dance,” Bucky replied, a beat too late. He straightened, twirling Sarah one last time before sketching a bow.

“Mind if I cut in?” Steve asked. Bucky was already letting go of Sarah’s hand, ready to move out of the way, when Steve caught his hand instead. Bucky froze. “You good with me stealing your guy for a second?” He addressed this last to Sarah.

Sarah was out of breath, flopping herself down on one of the couches. “Need a break,” she said. “Bucky, are you gonna dip him too?”

“Your dad’s a bit tall for that,” Bucky said, blinking. His hand was in Steve’s. He carefully placed his other on Steve’s shoulder, Steve’s free hand coming up to rest on his hip.

Steve grinned. That odd expression had disappeared somewhere behind his eyes, replaced by mischief when he leaned forward and murmured, “You gonna let me lead?” in Bucky’s ear as he started to move them through a clumsy imitation of one of the dances Bucky had taught him back in college.

Steve had always been a better leader than a follower, anyway, so Bucky let him have it. He clutched at him as they found their footing, Steve’s brow creased in concentration, Bucky’s whole body attuned to the way that Steve breathed. He counted the steps. Felt Steve’s hand in his. Tried not to concentrate on the moment when the music swelled, the exact moment he could feel Steve tensing up, ready to try and dip _him_ instead –

“That was fun,” Bucky said, pulling back. Pulling away several steps. Steve’s hands hung in the air for a second before they fell back to his sides. “But we gotta make dinner, yeah?” He took the needle off the record, grateful for the opportunity to turn his back on everyone while he put it back in its sleeve and into the box, the ache of it all pressing down directly on his sternum. He could die like that, he thought. Damn the man for managing to remember how to dance at all.

Steve had that look again, once Bucky turned back around. Something half guarded, half speculative, a whole world of thoughts churning around behind his eyes. Bucky didn’t trust that look one bit.

Going through the motions of making dinner was more difficult than usual. Bucky shooed Steve out of the kitchen – it was his turn to listen to Sarah’s story of her day – and put a pot of water to boil while he assembled pasta sauce and pulled himself together. He put thoughts of Steve’s hands on his body out of his mind, focusing on the act of chopping tomatoes, crushing garlic with the flat of his knife, cutting onions and amassing a small fleet of spice jars on the counter.

Cooking was good for calming his mind. Didn’t make him feel less like a housewife, though.

“Dinner’s up,” he called out while he strained the pasta.

“I tell you yet you’re an angel?” Steve asked, herding his daughter into the room with hands on her shoulders, his smile lopsided and sweet. Bucky’s chest started aching again.

“First time today,” Bucky replied. “Help me set the table.”

Steve and Bucky cooperated to spoon noodles and sauce onto the three plates while Sarah poured glasses of water carefully, very determined. They arranged themselves at the table, all three of them together, and it would’ve been the same kind of good it always was if Steve didn’t keep shooting him these little sideways _glances_ every so often. Bucky wanted to kick him and ask if he had something on his face, but the joke got snagged in his throat every time he inhaled to make it. He settled for shifting uncomfortably in his seat every now and again.

“Been a day for you, kiddo, huh?” Steve said after the meal started winding down, putting his hand on Sarah’s head. Her nose wrinkled and she stuck her tongue out at him. “You just about ready to get tucked in?”

Bucky glanced at the clock. Was it really seven-thirty already? Perfect time to get the kid in bed so she could read for a while before conking out – and that was factoring in the several inevitable checks that would have to happen around nine PM to make sure she wasn’t reading under her covers with a flashlight after Steve told her lights out.

“Is Bucky gonna stay?” she asked, looking up at Steve first, but she turned her imploring gaze on Bucky after a second.

 _Jeez, kid,_ Bucky thought. _Lay the guilt trip on a little thicker, will you?_ “Uh,” he said. He tugged an an earlobe self-consciously. “I don’t know, kid...”

“I was hoping you’d stick around for a bit at least,” Steve said. The weight of his eyes on Bucky was so heavy. “I want to talk to you.”

The speed at which Bucky’s stomach dropped to his shoes was impressive, frankly. He swallowed hard and nodded, unable to look away until Steve broke eye contact first to smile down at Sarah. “I’ll be back soon, Buck.”

“Okay,” Bucky said.

Sarah came over to give him his hug goodnight, and if he held her a little longer than usual, well. At least Steve didn’t say anything about it.

 

* * *

 

 

 

* * *

 

Steve disappeared with her down the hall to her bedroom, and Bucky sat at the kitchen table, just breathing for a few moments. Then he got up to do the dishes. It was better to have something to do with his hands, anyway, or at least something that wasn’t just sitting there wringing them until Steve got back. He stacked all the plates in the bottom rack of the dishwasher where they belonged, then tackled the pasta pot.

Steve hated serious conversations more than anyone else Bucky knew. Bucky was aware he was on edge after a weekend of people poking at him about their friendship, but if Steve was specifically requesting he stick around for a serious discussion, then it must have been bad. But what on earth could it be? Nothing out of the ordinary had happened, as far as he was aware. He’d picked the kid up, danced with her when her homework was through, made dinner, hardly firing offences –

He paused up to his elbows in soapy water and watched the suds bubble up over the sides of the pot. If Steve was finally ready to say he didn’t need help anymore, then maybe they _were_ firing offences. Maybe Bucky swing dancing with his daughter in the living room was the last straw.

Bucky’s anxiety very quickly became a physical thing, coalescing in his gut, sitting like a stone in the pit of his stomach.

“You knew this was coming, Barnes,” he muttered to himself. “Better brace yourself for it.”

He finished off the pasta pot with a bitter taste in his mouth and set it on the counter to dry, wiping his hands on a dish towel right as Steve padded back into the room.

“You did the dishes, too?” Steve asked, leaning in the doorway and crossing his arms over his chest. “Buck, isn’t in a universal unspoken rule that the guy who does the cooking doesn’t gotta do the dishes afterward?”

“They were there,” Bucky said a bit helplessly. “Look, Steve...”

“No, hang on,” Steve said, and went to the fridge, retrieving the two beers that usually lurked in the back, for emergencies or the odd evening that Steve and Bucky got to spend alone together sans-child. “C’mon. Sit with me, yeah?”

Bucky opened his mouth, then shut it. “Yeah,” he said.

He accepted the bottle Steve handed him and followed him to the living room. The couch was still shoved up against the wall from earlier, but Steve flopped down onto it with no complaint, sighing deeply. Bucky sat next to him a great deal more gingerly. Steve took a long pull from his bottle, looking at him, and Bucky felt suddenly very on-display, wondering what the hell was going on behind Steve’s eyes.

“I got something I need to tell you,” Steve said at last. “And I’m really hoping you don’t take this the wrong way, but...”

“I know,” Bucky interrupted. “It’s okay.”

Steve looked startled, maybe all the way to shocked. “You do?”

“It’s okay,” Bucky said again. “I’ve been trying real hard not to get in the way, with you ‘n Sarah, but I know I have been anyway.” His hands were restless in his lap, picking at the beer bottle label. “If you want me to stop sticking around like I have been, give you two some space, I get it. Alright? I won’t make a fuss, I promise –”

Steve moved so fast that Bucky didn’t see it coming. One second he was sitting on the other side of the couch, the next he was leaning forward and putting a hand on Bucky’s cheek, drawing him into a kiss that was over so quick Bucky didn’t have time to react.

“Will you stop being a martyr for one damn second?” Steve asked, ever so slightly breathless. He was still close enough that Bucky could’ve counted the freckles on his nose if he’d been able to look away from his eyes for a moment. “I’m trying to tell you I have feelings for you.”

Bucky stared at him blankly. His mouth was hanging open, struck dumb, lips buzzing from Steve’s lightning-fast kiss. "Since when?" he croaked.

“God.” Steve drew back and wiped a hand over his face with a groan. “Months. Ages. Didn’t know what the hell it was for the longest time.” He shot Bucky a very self-deprecating smile. “Wasn’t used to feeling this kinda way about a guy.”

The past few months of moping and self-pity came crashing over Bucky’s head all at once. “Why didn’t you _say_ anything? Jesus, pal.”

“I didn’t want to bring it up until I was sure!” Steve turned a shade of pink that Bucky didn’t think he’d ever seen on him before, the blush of it creeping down his throat. “Besides, you kept running away every time you didn’t think you were _needed._ Made it kind of hard to get you alone.”

Bucky could remember with sudden clarity, now, several times in the past week alone when Steve had tried to get him to stick around with those soft-eyed glances that Bucky had chalked up to their usual effusive friendship.

 _Come to the park with us,_ Steve had said.

 _You’re gone Sunday too?_ he’d asked, disappointed when Bucky rebuffed him.

 _Missing you,_ he’d texted, and now Bucky’s face was heating up too, but his was with shame.

“Oh, God,” he said.

“Yeah,” Steve said. Then, after a beat. “You, uh. You wanna say some words now? I don’t mean to rush you, Buck, but I’m kind of dying, here.”

“Oh, God,” Bucky said again.

Steve looked pained. _“Bucky.”_

Steve’s wedding – the night Sarah was born – every weekend Bucky had holed up in his apartment, waiting for the work-week when he could come home to Steve and Sarah – Bucky had been living on the outskirts of his own life for long enough that he didn’t know what to do with a door into it being opened in front of him. Steve’s kiss was warm on his lips. Bucky kind of wanted to cry.

“It’s been you for me for a long time,” he said roughly. “A real long time. You got any idea how many boyfriends tried and failed to measure up to you?”

Steve’s eyes widened. “You’re fucking with me.”

“I’m really not,” Bucky said, and he felt that he was hurtling closer to the edge of hysteria with every passing second, so he stood up from the couch for some distance. He scuffed a hand through his hair when he made it to the other end of the room. He couldn’t be sitting on that couch next to Steve right now, not when he could feel all the words he’d never spoken bubbling up in his throat. “I’m not,” he repeated, and licked his lips. “I wish I was.”

“Like, the last couple years?” Steve guessed, hands balled up into fists in his lap. “Or...?”

“Since college,” Bucky admitted, rubbing his hand over his jaw so he didn’t have to look at him. “Since before Peggy.”

“Oh, God,” Steve said.

“Yeah. So.” Bucky shoved his hands in his pockets and forced himself to look at Steve, bracing, once again, for Steve to tell him just how far over the line he was. “There you have it, then.”

“You volunteered to help me,” Steve said slowly, like he was really working at putting it together. “When I was at my lowest. You stepped in and helped me raise my daughter.”

Bucky swallowed thickly. “Yeah.”

“You didn’t ask for anything. You just did it.” Steve stood as well, taking several measured steps toward him. Bucky would’ve backed up further if his heels weren’t already up against the wall. “Seven goddamn years, Buck. _Seven_. And you were just – you were just here, loving me.”

“I know,” Bucky rasped. “I was there. Steve –”

“I’m sorry,” Steve said.

Bucky’s jaw clenched and unclenched, working around his own answering apology that tasted like bile. “What the hell are you sorry for?”

“For making you wait so long,” Steve said, hands finding Bucky’s waist.

Bucky’s lashes were wet from shame and sticking together, he could feel it when he blinked up at Steve, his body one line of tension under Steve’s touch. “What?” he asked.

“I’ll do better now,” Steve said, and kissed him.

Bucky didn’t have it in himself to do anything but kiss him back, grateful for the wall behind him so he didn’t have to worry about keeping himself up. Steve pressed against him and kissed him with a tenderness that Bucky hadn’t ever allowed himself to expect or desire, slow and careful and sweet. Steve made a soft sound, tangling a hand in Bucky’s hair. Bucky opened his mouth into the kiss and allowed it to wash over him, that _this_ was what Steve’s mouth felt like, that this was what Steve’s lips were like when they kissed.

This was Steve’s hand, tightening in Bucky’s hair when Bucky set teeth against his lower lip. This was Steve’s gasp that Bucky swallowed. This was Steve’s hand sliding up Bucky’s side like he just couldn’t help it; Steve’s tongue tangling and stroking together with his own; Steve’s heart racing so fast that Bucky could feel it rabbit-quick when he put a palm over his chest.

Bucky broke off with a gasp. “What about Sarah?”

Steve visibly blinked the haze from his eyes. He licked his lips. “Sarah?”

“If we start... if we do this, I don’t wanna make her world go topsy-turvy.” Bucky carefully put his hand over Steve’s so that Steve would keep it cupped over his hip. He didn’t want him to even think about not touching him.

“Oh, Buck,” Steve sighed. He reached out with his free hand, tucking a lock of Bucky’s hair behind his ear. “You being such a good dad to her is one of the reasons I fell for you in the first place.”

What could Bucky do but make a horrible wounded sound and haul Steve in? He didn’t kiss him again, not yet, he just hugged him as tight as he was able and buried his face in the crook of his neck as his body started to tremble. He worried for a moment that he was about to have a panic attack until he recognized that what he was feeling was _relief._ All the tension unspooled from him at once and he sagged against Steve, squeezing his eyes closed.

“But she’s yours,” he mumbled. “Yours and Peggy’s.”

“Yeah,” Steve replied. “Mine and Peggy’s and yours too, if you’ll have us.”

Bucky breathed raggedly into Steve’s shoulder for a long time. The word _yes_ sat so heavy on his tongue that he couldn’t say it. Steve held him, rocking a little, and Bucky made a fist around a handful of Steve’s shirt. _I feel so guilty for liking this,_ he thought.

“You don’t gotta feel guilty,” Steve murmured. Bucky winced when he realized he’d said that out loud. “A guy doesn’t usually get to have two loves of his life. I’m damn lucky.”

“Fuck,” Bucky said with feeling.

“Too much?” Steve asked, sheepish.

Maybe, but Bucky wasn’t going to say it. He shook his head woodenly, just resting his forehead on Steve’s collar bone while he caught his breath. Steve wanted him. Steve was here, being sweeter than he’d ever been, and he wanted him. Bucky couldn’t move, he was paralyzed by the mere notion of getting what he wanted, what he’d have never even considered asking for.

“You gonna stay tonight?” Steve murmured into his hair, still absent-mindedly stroking up and down Bucky’s back as he held him.

“Guest room still made up?” Bucky replied, and felt the echo of every other time they’d had this conversation in the past seven years press down on him. He guessed that was his room after all.

Steve huffed a laugh. Bucky could feel it against his cheek. “Yeah, Buck.”

Bucky didn’t know how to say out loud that he was never going to leave, then, if Steve really wanted him here. He thought it’d probably sound about as desperate as he felt, and everything was all jumbled up in his brain, in his throat, and his head had yet to stop spinning. God. Steve _wanted_ him.

“You wanna go to bed?” Steve asked, cupping Bucky’s face between his hands so he could look at him. “You’re looking a little overwhelmed, pal.”

“Maybe,” Bucky admitted, trying to smile. “Sorry.”

“Stick around for breakfast this time and I might just forgive you.” Steve kissed his forehead, and Bucky’s fist tightened around his handful of Steve’s shirt. “C’mon. I’ll tuck you in.”

 _Jesus, he really is a dad,_ Bucky thought as Steve walked him down the hall to the guest room, waiting until Bucky had kicked off his jeans and clambered into bed so he could perch on the edge of the mattress to say goodnight. His hands moved automatically to adjust the blankets around Bucky’s body, smoothing down the edges, reaching up to stroke a lock of hair off Bucky’s forehead. It was strange to be fussed over. Not a bad strange, though.

“Can I kiss you goodnight?” Steve asked.

Bucky just pulled him down in lieu of an answer, kissing Steve as sweetly as he was able, even if he didn’t think it was half as sweet as Steve deserved.

 

* * *

 

In the middle of the night, Bucky still wasn’t asleep, and his mind wouldn’t shut up.

Steve’s careful blanket arrangement had long since been destroyed by Bucky’s tossing and turning. One of Bucky’s legs dangled down, foot brushing the carpet, and he tried to breathe evenly as he stared holes into the ceiling and contemplated his next move.

In the morning, he and Steve would busy themselves with getting Sarah ready for school, gathering up her backpack and three-ring binders and whatever gel pen was currently her favorite – they’d make breakfast and tell each other to have a good day over their coffee cups, and they’d do these things with the enormous newness of whatever it was they were doing hovering over them, making every shared glance awkward. Bucky couldn’t stop touching his lips, thinking about Steve’s kisses. About Steve being in love with him.

The jittery adrenaline of the early evening had faded into a deeper-seated panic. Bucky put his hands over his eyes. Steve _loved_ him. Why on earth wasn’t he ecstatically happy about it? Well, he still couldn’t quite believe it was real, was the thing, or that it wasn’t about to be suddenly snatched away from him. He couldn’t even really bear to look at the reality of Steve loving him dead-on, in case it looked different through eyes that weren’t suspiciously squinting.

“Fuck it,” he said out loud, into the silent dark of the guest room.

He sat up and kicked the covers off his legs so he could stand, walked out of his room and down the hallway again, only hesitating once he was in front of Steve’s door. A sliver of yellow light beneath the door meant Bucky wasn’t the only one having trouble sleeping. He rapped his knuckles softly against the doorframe, waiting for Steve’s tired “C’mon in,” before he opened the door and stepped inside.

“Oh,” Steve said, surprise written all over his face. He was thoroughly nestled in his covers with a book in hand. “Hi.”

“My head’s still messed up,” Bucky said, closing the door behind himself. “The doctors don’t know how to unfuck my memory and they might never manage it.”

“I know,” Steve said slowly, obviously not getting where Bucky was going with this.

“My arm’s fucked too,” Bucky added. “I might not ever be able to hold down a job again, and I have really bad days, worse than I let on.”

“Buck.” Steve sat up properly, blankets falling away from his shoulders. Bucky was suddenly very aware that Steve was shirtless, and felt his mouth run dry. Steve made no move to cover up. “Bucky. Don’t you think I know who you are by now?”

Bucky bit the inside of his cheek, expression unconvinced.

“I like your fucked up brain.” Steve’s eyes were sharp and honest. “I don’t want or expect you to ever be any different than you are. Except –”

Bucky’s jaw tightened. “Yeah?”

“Maybe you could be a little happier,” Steve finished, and licked his lips. “Maybe I could make you a little happier.”

Bucky took a step forward, then another, slowly making his way to Steve’s bedside. Steve watched him come closer and didn’t move, except for a hand that curled and uncurled in the sheets. Bucky put his knee on the bed. He was afraid to make the last final move.

“You’ve never... with guys,” he said carefully, not a question, but he gave Steve an opportunity to prove him wrong.

“How hard can it be?” Steve asked, shrugging. “You seem to know what you’re doing, anyway.”

Bucky’s smile was helpless, flattered and awed and terrified all in one. Steve trusted him so openly, so willingly. He hoped to God he could meet him in the middle without flinching. “I’ll take care of you,” he said, and put his other knee on the mattress, reaching out to finally put his hands on him. Steve’s bare skin was smooth and warm and felt good beneath both hands, left and right, beneath crooked and uncrooked fingers.

“God,” Steve said. He shook his head faintly. “Let me take care of _you_ , for once.”

Bucky was reminded viscerally of his dream on Saturday evening, and felt his face color. “Okay,” he breathed. “Okay, Steve.”

Bucky had watched and waited and loved Steve as quietly as he was able for many years now. It had been a tender, vulnerable thing that he had cradled to his chest for all of his adult life, and shame couldn’t keep him from feeling it, although it had tried its hardest.

He'd spent so long telling himself that his desires were untoward at best and exploitative at worst that it made him dizzy to realize he didn’t have to feel guilty this time. He was allowed to have this. Against all odds, he was even allowed to want it.

When Steve reached for him, Bucky arched into it instead of freezing or pulling away.

 

* * *

 

 

 

* * *

 

In the morning, Bucky woke to an empty bed. He opened his eyes and felt the dizzy surreality that always came with waking up somewhere he wasn’t used to, coupled with the fact that he hadn’t really expected to wake up alone. Panic struck him, wondering if Steve had changed his mind after all –

But then he heard the familiar breakfast sounds from the kitchen, Steve’s muffled laughter, Sarah’s loud feet on the hardwood floor. He smiled.

He rifled through a drawer for a pair of Steve’s pajama pants and stole a sweatshirt while he was at it, shuffling toward the kitchen. Steve and Sarah both looked up when he entered, and Steve was smiling that favorite smile of his, the one that made his eyes go soft and honeyed.

“You stayed!” Sarah exclaimed, grinning.

“Yeah,” Bucky said. He touched the crown of her head, his daughter’s head, drawing her close to his side where she fit perfectly at his hip. He held Steve’s gaze. “Yeah, I did.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fic brought to you by the fact that Hawaii 5-0 had McGarrett and Danny raising a kid together platonically and ruining me for this trope forever.
> 
> Trigger warnings:
> 
> \- Peggy Carter is dead in this story. Although it happens in canon, I think this deserves a proper warning since this story is an AU, and may not be expected. Her death is not treated lightly or cavalierly - her and Steve's shared love is treated with the utmost respect the whole time.
> 
> \- Bucky has some internalized ableism with regards to his brain and left arm injuries, but it's fairly mild, and there aren't any microaggressions that happen to him in the story; Bucky's just working through some mixed feelings that he's had since Iraq.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art Post For: Where Somebody Waits For Me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17961503) by [IsabellaJack](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IsabellaJack/pseuds/IsabellaJack)




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